Lovelyish

Holy crap! I honestly can’t remember my word problems from school. I’m sure at the very least there were gender stereotypes. 

@lorelei@xanga - I feel like I always had very racially-balanced word problems as far as names were concerned. But mostly, I just try to block out all memory of math classes in general.

I don’t remember anything like that from school. Slaves? Are you kidding me? That person shouldn’t be allowed to teach again, ever. That’s very offensive. Reading that, my mouth just dropped open. It’s unbelievable. 

what.  the.  FUCK.  If my kid brought that home, I would immediately make a huge stink with administration.  That is utterly and completely asinine.  Somebody like that should not be shaping young minds if they think it’s A-OK to write slavery problems into their test.  Unless, of course, the problems in question were photocopied directly from a vintage math book circa 1954.  Totally joking, that still isn’t ok.

What kind of a-hole idiot does this without expecting to be fired?

omg seriously!!!

that is so heinous! do i remember anything like that in school? nope i think that would have stuck in my head

why would you expose a little kid to that i mean yea i know eventually their going to learn about it but let them keep their innocence for as long as they can.

i was very shocked when i read this and it kind of makes me nervous for when my daughter starts going to school, but then again im also bothered by the fact that there are only 8 planets in our solar system now instead of 9 (poor pluto) 

Wow… what an idiot. I’m guessing the second problem was referring to Frederick Douglass to keep the slavery theme going as well.

Maybe I just have a sick sense of humor, but as a former teacher myself I find it hilarious. When I taught in predominantly Mormon Idaho, and being ex-LDS myself, a lot of the word problems I came up with played upon Mormon stereotypes. Even the Mormons in my classes found it funny. Then again, it could be because I taught college and at least most college students can take a joke.

No harm, no foul I think. They’re legitimate math problems. Some people just get their panties in a bunch over nothing, I guess.

If you read the article and not what is written here, the teachers tried to  collaborate on how history and math can be interrelated (yet it was done poorly as you can see in this article). It wasn’t done with the intention to be racist, they were learning about slavery. Yes it should warrant some kind of punishment or suspension but I couldn’t ever imagine asking a teacher to be fired. They learned and learned fast that it just wasn’t their best idea.

This is disgusting and the teachers needs to be discipliend.

This is parents overreacting.  They are word problems not racism.  If you’re studying slavery at the time, then it totally fits.  People overreact to stupid things.  I actually live near these schools.  People really do need to get over it.  It’s school, history and math.  This actually would make more since to kids anyway the way it’s worded.  And actually I doubt the teacher is fully responsible.  It might have been word problems from a math book.

@StatelessPilot@revelife - dude this was done by a 3rd grade teacher! 3rd grade, that means these kids are like 7 and 8 learning about slaves getting beaten.

i mean i have no problem with kids learning about history, because yea it did happend, but am i gonna let my 3rd grader watch roots because that sort of thing did happen in history? no im not…

@MiriamBeth@xanga - that’s understandable because that’s what most schools are trying to do now, but come on, these are educators, they’re supposed to be smart people, and these 5 people together didn’t think it was going to raise any eyebrows or piss off any parents? Even if it was just for the intention of educating and not being racist, shouldn’t they have thought of a better way to interrelate these two subjects, or maybe try to intreallate 2 different subject such as history and english (compostion)?

That person seems like a douche. Find a better way to connect math and history, you numpties. 

The teachers should be given a break. They’re just a bit naive, not racist. They were simply trying to work in some inter-disciplinery links into the curriculum and it was misinterpreted.

It like they’re taking slavery and trying to make a joke about it. 

Oy. This is why people think Georgia is full of bigots. 

I dunno but it sounds like they’re probably closet-racists and using children’s homework questions as a ‘transference’ tool.

what the fuck.

I wouldn’t use the word Racist.. but the wording are not appropriate. 

I’m a certified teacher (endorsed in social studies, actually), and a huge fan of interdisciplinary lessons, but seriously, these teachers should have known this would get them into trouble. If they wanted to combine the theme of slavery/civil war with word problems, the problems could have at least asked students to calculate a number of slaves freed, how many speeches Frederick Douglass made over a certain time span, or something like that, not how many beatings the slave got or how many oranges they picked! They could have inserted the theme into the word problems without being offensive.

@EJC102486@xanga - Agreed. I understand what he was trying to do, but…he did it badly. Unless he was trying to highlight how bad slavery was through his math problems jeez. 

off topic, but I remember a lot of my math books using Hispanic names throughout to add to the diversity of the book. I would always pronounce Jose “Jo-zay” because I didn’t know it was a Spanish-pronounced name.

@Rebekka Holman@facebook -  yeah, I’ve been starting to wonder lately if anyone even edits the content that goes up.

I understand the idea behind the interdisciplinary teaching, but they definitely could have worded it better. however, I also don’t think the teacher should be fired for this and I don’t think this qualifies as “heinous”. Definitely the teacher should be punished in some way, but I don’t think they should be losing their job over it. 

I will say, being from Georgia, shit like this is probably we have such low testing scores….ha.

@StatelessPilot@revelife - It’s because it’s Georgia. The vast majority of black people here get really easily offended over anything that has to do with race, and the vast majority of white people here are genuinely racist, even if they’re closeted. I’ve lived here for 21 years and lived in all parts of the state (north, south, and greater atlanta area) so I feel justified in making this sweeping generalization

Obviously, the teacher should have known better.  But should she really lose her job over it?  People are always so apt to scream “Fire her!” but seriously… this is her job.  How she supports herself and her family.  Yeah, she made a mistake.  She should be reprimanded, but still have her job.   

Wow. Just wow.

who fuckin currs, not me

@StatelessPilot@revelife - College and Elementary School ARE completely different… completely. College-aged students understand satire, no 7 year old does.

Thumbs down for this school district! Not the poster! =)

Anyways.. As a teacher myself, this is repulsive and offensive. It’s OK to bring satire and discuss racial tensions in the classroom, in the appropriate setting. Elementary school children are not going to understand why their teacher is asking them a question about a beating, they’re going to laugh at it. In no way, ever, should this be tolerated. In a state or federally-funded public elementary school this type of “humor” shouldn’t be tolerated — ever. In college, whatever, you get what you pay for, you make a decision to take a class. These kids had no choice, and the teacher had no right to be this offensive. As a teacher, as a rule of thumb, when you make a decision and you don’t know if it’s appropriate or not, you need to ask yourself, “Would 5 out of 10 people have a problem with this? What problems can I potentially see coming from this?” You have to think about this from a viewpoint of a 7 year old. They’re going to laugh at slave jokes, they’re going to laugh about beatings, and if they’re black they’re going to feel REAL awkward. I see potentially physically violent situations coming from this. And I know, for a fact, at least 50% of the parents would not be OK with this. This isn’t “no harm done.” This is radical racism that should not be tolerated. I call for not only the teachers, but the ADMINISTRATION who allowed this to be fired. This is disgusting.

@HaleyHailstorm - If she wrote this crap down and gave it to her students, she does NOT deserve to have her job. She is obviously horrible at her job. And let me tell you why I think this, I don’t think it simply because I myself am offended by it, but I think she should not be in the education field because I, myself, am in the field. Specifically, I teach elementary school. There are a few things you need to know how to do to be a good teacher:

#1 Understand what is developmentally appropriate for students the age you are teaching them. Something along the lines of what she had written, even if not meant to be offensive, will not be understood by her students. If she was going for the comical/satirical angle.. well, anyone with half of a brain or college education focusing on educating children should know children cannot comprehend that type of humor at that age.
#2 Encourage diversity in a public classroom setting. Develop a “safe environment” where children can share their feelings on topics of inclusion and diversity. All children should feel safe and accepted at all times as much as possible — we all know how much rejection kids face from their peers when they’re not being watched by us, why would we not do everything we possibly could to develop better, “safer” discussion places?
#3 Understand classroom dynamics. One thing that pertains to this is that children have a hard time expressing themselves. When they’re in day school, and kindergarten, typically children will play games with different smiley faces, and tell us what the different emotions on the faces mean, and tell us which smiley face they feel like that day. We need to encourage students to express emotion, but we also understand kids aren’t grown-ups, they don’t always think of the consequences of their actions. Sally is laughing at a joke the teacher made about slaves getting beat, and all of a sudden Mary is punching her in the face because she feels abandoned by her teacher, she feels confused by the topic of slave beatings in a math question and she is MAD. 
This teacher obviously did not think or act properly. If she wants to have a job, she should find one outside of the education field. In my opinion, her actions show she does not have the basic skills required to be a teacher. She should find a job elsewhere. Preferably, with a bunch of white people who won’t hate her.

yes and no.
For some reason I’ve found that most of my k-12 math teachers where total a-holes with the exception of one (coincidentally or not this one teacher was the only one that taught at a private school).

However, from the information I gather in this article, I wouldn’t go so far as to expect the expulsion of the teachers. It’s totally understandable the NAACP would call for their termination; they’re expected to overreact to these sorts of situations so that minority oppression doesn’t slowly creep in. (Hi there. I’m a minority)

If there is no incentive to encourage slavery or the degradation of certain groups of people then I don’t see what’s wrong with this? Slavery occurred (and in some places it is still active). There I said it. Slavery is a part of America’s history; it isn’t uprooted but we do need to acknowledge its existence so that we can learn from our mistakes.

LOL what do you expect from the states over in that area??? that’s hilarious

@StatelessPilot@revelife - Totally agree. My favorite teachers were always the ones who could joke around. There was one point in high school where the theme of the “Spring Fling” was going to be “Jungle Fever”… Apparently that got all the parents in a tizzy, yet none of the students knew what it meant. So it was changed to “Safari Stomp”.

@x__RainOnHerParade@xanga - Sorry about that. I was the only one working yesterday and we were experiencing major issues with our blogging platform and still trying to find news through SOPA. I apologize for the occasional error but we are a tiny and diligent team, working very hard to bring you good content. Thanks for reading!

WTH. 

I’m not outraged, it’s more of a “and this moron has been teaching for how many years?!?!?” kinda thing. 

The math problems came along with a book about slavery.  Granted, the way they are worded could have been a ton better, but it’s okay.  Kids need to be taught about slavery! I’d personally want my kids to know how fucked up some people were (or are still). If they had been singling out the African American students to take it home, then I’d have been concerned.  

@StatelessPilot@revelife - We must be on the same page because I could not help but laugh when I read those problems.

They could have thought of better math problems but I still find those funny. Also, third graders are 8 and some are 9, not like that makes a difference. Moral of the story, come up with better math problems.

What ever happen to the two trains going 60 and 80 miles an hour? 

@loveable_lush@xanga - Yes, my mother is a primary school teacher so I understand what it means to be a good teacher.  Yes, this woman made a mistake.  But to assume that she’s a bad teacher based on this isolated incident is absurd.  I do think the woman should have been reprimanded but not necessarily fired.  

However, if there were more proofs of her being a bad teacher, then by all means, fire her.  Just not based solely on this incident.

well, the first problem is unsolvable.. we don’t know how many trees there are. so, gonna need an update on that. 

on a more serious note, i would be interested in hearing the teachers thoughts on why they did this. i find it interesting that the instant conclusion is “someone from the south said slave… RACIST!!”. not that that isn’t the case, but it’s not necessarily. slavery is alive and booming today; it’s one of if not THE biggest market out there, and given the more predominant types of slavery going today, like forced prostitution and sexual slavery, i’d say picking fruit would be a thousand times preferable. that said, we (american society) treat illegal immigrants like slaves.. stereo-typically doing that very job so who’s to say without looking into it first that this teacher wasn’t trying to make an ill-advised and poorly executed social commentary? 

@mycontinuity@xanga - that was a mess… carnage everywhere, no survivors.. their still picking body parts out of the surrounding countryside where the two trains “met”

Are these Hebrew slaves while in Egypt?  Or Greek or Roman slaves from that era?  Or American slaves?  Or perhaps Chinese slaves working on out Transcontinental Railroad?  I don’t see any references giving any kind of subjective element as to whether this was good or not.  It just mentiones the term slaves.

I’m concerned that one can’t mention the word in an objective manner without it being politically incorrect.  Why can’t we speak of the inhumanity of slave holders, or the treatment of witches in Salem, of the persecution of the thinkers by the Catholic Church, without it being a punishable offense?  When it should be punishable is when these are held up as exemplary or as models.  I didn’t see that in these examples. 

What’s the problem here?

@curiousdwk@xanga - yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Why does mentioning “slaves” make one racist? And why is “beatings” associated with a certain race too? People are too quick to play the racism card these days.

I don’t get it. Slaves did exist, after all. 

What frightens me is this question -

Are these questions on a standardized test???

Since No Child Left Behind, teachers only care about passing tests, so what if these are honest-to-goodness test questions?

yeah man, I laughed a bit. Mostly at the concept though.